I support the union and the strike, but do try to have empathy for the other affected party here: the students.
People are going to be miffed about this situation throwing a wrench in their plans and lives, and that's understandable.
Still, the university is being incredibly stubborn and unreasonable. The union's demands are quite reasonable.
I mean. Doesn't this hate against the union and TAs come from a place of self-centeredness? People owe a duty to care about each other. Like, it's just not a moral thing to only think about yourself.
And...don't you all see that we're all working class? When we support unions we support rights of the working people, this has nothing to do with hating students. You should understand that unions are responsible for a fuck ton of privileges you have today and will enjoy in future.
They have a right to strike. It's not personal. It's not because they hate you. It's because they're underpaid. Why would you be angry at the TAs for that??? The university's the one not paying them!
Just because y'all don't have the chance to bargain for your rights, doesn't mean you shouldn't support others. If you're pissed about working at your underpaid, shitty ass job, then...form a union.
So it’s considered selfish to complain about the strike when students are paying to live here and go to school here (costing us thousands a month) but it’s not selfish to say F the students we aren’t getting paid enough? Even though many of those who are striking make more than the countries average on a per hour average basis…
You're targeting the wrong entity because you think the strikers are the ones in the wrong, and not the university. You are not entitled to the TA's labour. The university and you formed a contract, *not* you and TAs. Your grievances should be heard by the university and not the striking members.
And oh, the whole "make more than the country's average" thing has been debunked many times. Toronto (and Vancouver) are the most expensive cities to live in Canada. If you'd do 10 mins of research you'll find that their hourly wages do not keep up with the COL. And that more often than not they're spending more time on work than they're paid for. It's not just about wages either. The strike is also about better working conditions, job security, etc.
They literally went through a collective bargaining process. The university failed to respond to several times despite numerous requests. You think they just got up one day and said fuck all the students and decided to strike? You are NOT entitled to their labour.
It’s not been “debunked”…. Here is a current listing from yorku for a TA, with the hourly at over $35 an hour…. Which is well above a livable wage. So saying “TAs don’t make enough” is false and saying “they are paid under a livable wage” is also false. I don’t feel bad for the TAs, they are being greedy at this point. I ONLY feel bad for all the students who pay to live in Toronto, and pay to go to york and because of the strike are now losing thousands of dollars a month paying to live in a city and attend a uni that doesn’t even have classes. And the whole “spend more time doing work then what they are paid for” is bs. Many professions work more than the hours they are paid, and don’t complain… however if they are going to complain then simply don’t do the extra work outside of working hours…
The uni didn’t “fail to bargain”, they did bargain, but it’s hard to do so in good faith when the union is being overly greedy.
https://ca.indeed.com/cmp/York-University/salaries/Teaching-Assistant/Ontario#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20a%20Teaching,39%25%20above%20the%20national%20average.
$35 an hour is a living wage at full time hours. But TAs are not given full time hours. Up until last year I was a PhD student and TA at York. Annual compensation, including TA wages, is 24k per year. That is simply not livable in Toronto, and TAs are being forced to take on second and third jobs in addition to TAing, picking up teaching contracts if possible, apply for as much funding as they can secure, be a full-time student, and try to become a successful academic by writing and publishing.
York can and should do much more to support their TAs. Just throwing around the $35/hr number is not honest.
so where is the logic in taking on a part time job and are expecting that part time time to pay for all of your living expenses or pay you for full time hours when working partime?
a part time job is just that, a part time job. it is not meant to pay for all of your living expenses or pay ypu a significant annual income.
Reposting one of my comments on this topic:
Going to respond to this as if you're seriously asking (which I hope you are!):
I agree with you for undergraduate (and even Masters) students. But for doctoral students, which are the only students that can TA, even with only part-time teaching hours, being a doctoral student is presented to applicants as a full-time job. When I was applying to my doctoral program, the program advisor literally said to me that I should post-pone my PhD plans if I had any immediate family members that seemed as if they might die in the next 3 years. Doctoral programs expect full-time (and above) devotion.
As a PhD-er, your actual TA hours (which you get a wage for) are part-time, but as a doctoral student you are expected to be a team player on the faculty, including: applying for as much funding as possible to bring more money into the Department; researching, writing, and publishing with your supervisor or other faculty to build up an academic resume for yourself; eventually doing practical lab work or field work or archival work (depending on your field); and participating in Departmental committee work (hiring, tenure-review, admissions, curriculum-review, etc.). All of that in addition to being a full-time doctoral student and a part-time TA, meaning you are taking the most difficult and comprehensive coursework and examinations of your life, learning how to be a teacher on the fly, and writing the most comprehensive and in-depth research project of your life (so far!) while having it be peer-reviewed and interrogated by tenured faculty that terrify you.
There's a reason that doctoral programs in Europe pay full and livable salaries to their PhD students. Firstly their universities are less 'diploma-mill-y' than ours are, but also, those schools recognize that being a doctoral student is not like being a regular student with a part-time teaching gig. It's the first-step in an academic career, with time commitments that are absolutely back-breaking and far above full-time in terms of actual effort. Some schools in North America (I'm not sure if York does this, it may technically require it but look the other way) require that doctoral students sign a contract saying they won't pick up another job! Because as a doctoral student you are expected to literally dedicate your entire waking life for 4-6 years to your doctoral studies and the dream of becoming an academic.
Now this is all absolutely a scam, since universities create far more PhDs than there are professorships. It's this scam factor that caused me to leave my PhD program. But I will not fault those that are still in their PhDs and trying hard to live and achieve their career goals from fighting to make sure that while they are in that scam they are not scraping the poverty line making net $24k/year in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And that's what this strike is about.
okay but. how many hours do they work? (contractually, mind you, not because they're "lazy" or anything) i could make $500 an hour and it wouldn't be a livable wage if i only got one hour a month.
In that case as you mentioned, much like with the TA’s, it’s not the taxpayers job, or the students job to fork over more money to support a bunch of people who CHOOSE to work less hours than the standard work week.
you don't understand, the TAs don't *want* you to pay more money. that's not what's happening. strikes like these happen because the university *has* the budget to pay these people a livable wage, but instead they're throwing all that money into the Markham Vanity Project.
The university expanding has nothing to do with the TA’s lol that’s just false equivalency, but as for the money thing, their financials are all online to see, york barely scrapes by each year between revenues and expenses, and a lot of their assets have been acquired through donations, however those donations go towards certain projects chosen by said donors and cannot be used by the school for anything other than its intended purpose. So realistically york doesn’t have a lot of budget space to work with to meet the new demands, especially when they need that budget to provide more resources to students needs aswell as other faculty other than just the TA’s
Hourly wages for faculty and TAs are based on the classroom contact hours. So if you have a 1-hour tutorial, your TA gets paid for 1 hour. But that "hour" also includes time outside of the contact hours for them to do prep work, communicate with students, and do grading.
Also what working conditions need to be improved? Majority of TAs do most of their work from home, and it’s not like the job is labour intensive or necessarily difficult by any means.
Have you ever talked to a TA about what their job entails? Also, most of the demands are regarding increasing pay to match the cost of living, and upgrading the health insurance package.
Lmao as per the earlier link I had posted in this thread, the average TA makes upwards of $35 an hour (more than doubled minimum wage) and already receives tons of benefits on top of that for a job that isn’t labour intensive or difficult. They are being greedy now.
I undertand why the strike needs to happen but also international students or people living on campus- will they be allowed to stay longer because of the strike? Or will they have to pay even more money to stay past april?
edit: to people downvoting me i’m asking legit questions, i’m sorry if what i’m asking doesn’t align with your perception of reality where the strike only impacts york executives- but other people are getting fucked over too. It’s not selfish to think about students who also are paying to live here.
PhD stipend is like what, $17,000 a year and TAships add another $15,000 if you do it every semester and TA many hours? That's $32,000 a year, practically minimum wage and balancing research and TA work ends up costing you 12-hour workdays.
It's extremely difficult to survive on that, especially in Toronto.
It's around $29k total funding per year before the \~$5500 tuition. The TA hours to get that are mandatory unless your supervisor buys you out with their own funding.
Way too many PhDs out in the wild. I interviewed six different chemistry PhDs last year and they were honestly dumber than many many undergraduates and masters I already have on staff. The fact that PhDs have become guaranteed if you pay your dues is horseshit.
What the fuck happened to contributing to your field of study and making humanity better off for it? The vast majority of doctoral theses published in the past two decades don't even get referenced ONCE(!!!) five years after publication.
PhD thesis citations are not a meaningful metric. It depends a lot by field, but I don't expect anyone to ever cite my thesis (except others in my group for their own thesis), and I have plenty of citations on papers I published during my PhD. The only reason anyone would cite it is if they're talking about some extremely specific aspect of our experimental technique, which is not common.
Yeah a citation from a dissertation is typically not common since folks may convert their dissertation to books or journal articles. A dissertation is a tough thing to cite cause it’s soo dense as opposed to a article or book since editorials have more influence.
This is what it’s like going to a CUPE 3903 meeting. A bunch of extremists screaming at anybody trying to be realistic.
So glad to be out of that union, so I don’t have to listen to any more complaints about things such as: a white man speaking to answer a question he was asked, a CUPE national rep pointing out something that happened, and the university trying to put online voting in place so more union members could vote on final offers and strikes rather than just the ones who can make it to an inconveniently scheduled meeting and stand in line for hours.
I went through the strike in 2008 that was ended with legislation.
My frustration at the time was that CUPE 3903 was asking for a new stream making TAs full time employees with guarantees to become full time professors. It was obviously not going to happen- which became particularly apparent when YUFA put a statement out the supported the University's position. I felt like CUPE wasn't bargaining in good faith at the time at the cost of my education.
I've only glanced at the news- but the good news is that it looks like this is simply a wage issue. Hopefully the University coughs up the cash and everyone can get back to work!
I was also at york during the 2008 strike and they were asking for way too much back then too.
The argument for "living wage" is also dumb. If prices of food and shelter are too high (Which they are for sure) that is not the Universities Job, that's the governments job to enact different policies to address this. The University is just a school, they can't control the cost of housing and food. The TAs are not going to get much more money than what any other TA gets in canada.
“It’s a complex issue so we should make the bottom suffer”
If there is no broader political change to bring down the cost of living, then it’s the responsibility of organizations and corporations to ensure their staff are adequately compensated. That’s how the system works. If you dont like it, then work to reform the system.
I hope my post isn't made to look like I don't support the union. I think a lot of people missed that public servants were capped at 1% increases through historic inflation increases. Asking for back pay to make up the difference isn't a militant position at all.
The union doesn’t what it can to make voting difficult so that only the ones who care the most will bother to come out. They choose a small window on a Friday afternoon to make sure the vote is stacked with the most hardcore radicals.
What do they even mean by that? I don’t get it, if it’s in a somehow racist way then it seems out of character considering how “for the people” the post sounds
Judging by OPs current responses, no actual conversation will be had. They came here to say their piece and then just start to throw around the boot licker comment to any opposing view.
Very good look, very mature, very much how you enlighten, engage and persuade others. You do more harm to yourself and your cause with aggression towards anyone other than your employer.
I just call it how I see it. Someone’s gotta say it 🤷🏻
What am I gonna do, give a detailed lit review on the manifesto to some business bros on Reddit? 🙄
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
As a former TA, my understanding is this job is not meant to sustain you. It's a part time job for extra money and experience but it's not meant to live off of which is why I think this is a little ridiculous...
If you contribute your labour, you should be able to afford to live and continue providing that labour. It shouldn’t be the case that these roles are reserved for only the extremely wealthy as a resume builder. It’s peoples lives.
That's a terrible argument, you should be paid adequately for the labour you do. If you work 2 hours for $50 an hour, then you get paid $100 and pick up another job.
Is it actually full time work tho? It’s 3 days tops if they sit down and work a normal 8 hour shift. How hard can marking work and writing up a slide before the semester begins be. If they are doing the profs work then they should be having a problem with the profs who get paid over 100k who put all their work onto underpaid TAs
I was a TA at York for years. While you’re accurately portraying the attitude of those most involved in 3903, you should realize that you’re actually turning people against TAs with your ridiculous expectations and outright lies. Having a part time job doesn’t mandate your employer to cover all of your living expenses for whatever small amount of labour you do.
If you’re a graduate student, TAing isn’t a full time job. There’s no way the university would allow you to take on 8 67.5 hour TAships per semester. Those that do that are in unit 2 and pull in more than $80,000 per year working full time. Those that do not have full time positions choose to take the jobs knowing they are part time contract positions. If they really thought they were so terrible, there wouldn’t be as many people fighting for each one offered.
There is 135 hour/semester limit on TAing...
[https://www.yorku.ca/unit/faculty-relations/work-performed-by-graduate-students/](https://www.yorku.ca/unit/faculty-relations/work-performed-by-graduate-students/)
Getting a kick out of the business bro corporate simps in here like “take a first year economics class” 🤣
You’re literally taking a degree in exploiting the working class, it’s entirely capitalist propaganda. Take a liberal arts course or two. Broaden your social horizons a bit lads 😮💨
Wrong. Stalin was funded by the West. Two thirds of Soviet industry was funded by the United States. Try again.
[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1944v04/d883](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1944v04/d883)
A telegram sent from the Soviet Ambassador to the United States is American government propaganda? Clearly you lack the capacity to think for yourself.
I’m literally as far from that as you can get.
Western economics is no more than a Ponzi Scheme designed to enrich the wealth of the ruling class. Economics as a field of study simply exists to enable the agenda of the ruling class, perpetuate the ideology, and solidify its position in society.
Take the opportunity to learn from marginalized groups in society and it becomes apparent how damaging this structure is to our society as a whole. Take a course in indigenous or women’s studies, even environmental studies. You know what I’m saying lol
Like others have suggested, if you’re so upset about this you should take action and leave instead of continuing to benefit from ongoing settler-colonial-capitalist violence. May I suggest you move to one of the countries elsewhere in the world thriving off a socialist or communist system that has no history of colonization?
Not really. People are tired of hearing this nonsense. All you’re doing with this is hurting the cause you wish to support. Nonsense rhetoric like this is seriously damaging the Canadian left and people like you are certainly at fault for the major shift to the right in this country. When we regress to right wing identity politics in the next election I hope you remember that you and your nonsense rhetoric played a part in it.
Economic and social instability is capitalized on by right wing politicians who provide oversimplified answers and a common scapegoat enemy. And in uncertain times scared people don’t tend to like complex answers to complex issues, because they aren’t “easy” and are often uncomfortable. It’s literally just groupthink/riot mentality.
That’s not a fault of leftists 😅
They’re winning because they’re lying and taking cheap shots on marginalized people.
Naw, when your average politically uninvolved person hears nonsense rhetoric like “so called Canada” they tend to immediately stop listening. Conservatives don’t need to capitalize on this, like the vast majority of Canadians think you are insane. Source: I go outside. You clearly need to try it sometime.
Reading this guy's post history is like reading the walls of the nut house, I would laugh if this wasn't something a real person actually though.
Least insane lefty moment.
>You’re literally taking a degree in exploiting the working class,
Business, Engineering, Law, they are usually biased towards those things, cause,
* They are highly privileged in Financially and Socio Economics
* They are only focused on their passions, goals, they don't care about those, as long as it don't affect them
* Usually/Rarely take any Liberal Arts courses lol
>Take a liberal arts course or two. Broaden your social horizons a bit lads
You have pointed this right.This helped me understanding those things, after I moved to another Degree from CS.
**Yet another problem is, lots of students especially business, law, always disagree adn and not wanting to understand things that are taught in the class lol**. They even argues with profs, and accuses them to be propagandist lmao I saw those happening in those classes lol
Yeah I’ve seen it too, but idk in my opinion it’s better for them to at least be exposed to the ideas rather than hole up in their echo chamber.
I don’t believe that you can be truly personally successful unless you are conscious of the intersectional community around you, and make an effort to ensure they are equally as well off as you are.
Idealist I know, but it’s something to work towards.
You realize that you too exist within an echo chamber of your own means right? And tbh it ain’t anyones job to care about anyone else… cause that’s when you run into issues of body autonomy and suppression from one group towards another. Without realizing, you are perpetuating the very thing you want to destroy.
You can care about others, and care about their bodily autonomy too… id wager that respecting their bodily autonomy is essential to truly caring for someone 🤷🏻 what’s with all the black and white, my lordddd
What you said is self contradicting. If everyone started caring about everyone then you’d have a bunch of people running around trying to control others because they think they knows what is best for others based on their own opinions and experiences. Like what you have with republicans in the states trying to ban abortion as an example. If people truly didn’t care about everyone else then problems like racism, body autonomy, and many more would cease to exist as everyone would be indifferent towards each other instead of overbearing, demanding, and controlling.
I prefer indifference. Id prefer that random people didn’t start caring for random people because what I do isn’t anyone else’s business, and what anyone else does isn’t my business, until it starts to impact me and my life. If everyone started living that way and showed mutual respect, a lot of issues in the world would disappear.
Every student at York is capable of looking at the very recent strike history of their post-secondary educational choice.
Is 2018 too long ago for students now to care about? 142 days on the picket line.
[https://macleans.ca/education/york-university-is-this-canadas-most-strike-prone-school/](https://macleans.ca/education/york-university-is-this-canadas-most-strike-prone-school/)
don’t be so disrespectful to our country by calling it “so-called-Canada”. Our country is called CANADA. This behaviour is absolutely disgusting because you are basically spitting on the graves of everyone who built this country, and died defending it so show a little bit more respect. Shame on you.
Complain about Catholic Churches then, not Canadians. Our families all came here from different backgrounds for the same reason, so show a little bit more respect for the country you are currently living in. Canadians and indigenous didn’t lay down their lives in war protecting this country for you just so you can sit here and be disrespectful towards it.
It’s not just Catholic Churches though, that was just one tool used by the state. It’s RCMP it’s Family Services, it’s the Indian Act etc etc etc.
There’s a difference between respecting the martyr and respecting the state.
There’s no unpacking here. It’s just clear that you have a very heavily left leaning bias and can’t fathom the idea that everyone else’s business isn’t your own and that it’s not everyone else’s job to be forced to provide money/resources to help others who wouldn’t do the same for them.
Public healthcare in Canada is way to expensive for the taxpayer compared to its quality. I’d gladly take private healthcare as an option as I know I would get insurance and benefits through my company like our coworkers in the states.
But is private insurance not just the same as public health care? You’re paying into a pool of money that anyone in the pool can use when they god-forbid need it?
Oh that’s right, you only want to do nice things for other wealthy people… I see 🙄
Agreed 100%.
Way too many students taking it out on the union staff and TA’s who the university would fail to function without. They don’t want to resort to this, but I can’t blame them and neither should anyone. They’re overworked and making barely over minimum wage to live in a city where you have to make 3-4 times that to survive.
I sympathize with the inconvenience and financial hardship that gets passed onto my fellow students. And the concerns and stress that is being felt by us is valid.
But you should be angry at York and their crummy overpaid higher ups as well the provincial government for this.
Bill 124 was a disgusting use of the notwithstanding clause and it fucked over so many public service workers. The demands of the union are more than reasonable.
If you really blame the unions for this I ask you to put yourself in their shoes. Seriously. Some of yall have never worked a debilitating minimum wage job or educated yourself on these issues and it shows.
I don't understand what that has to do with me. I don't require critical thinking as I am physically stronger than most people, therefore correct by default.
I have a PL total that exceeds 1100lbs. I am stronger than 99.9% of the world's population.
Bullying is bad.
Source: I am stronger than you and therefore correct by default.
[Do you think more than .1% of people alive today can deadlift 455lbs for a single? ](https://youtu.be/kb6QFM2IN50?si=aUwD888zVvKWIHCf)
[Or bench thier own bodyweight for more than 10 reps?](https://youtu.be/F6fQhtp632c?si=gB1UZf7zpFhIyEqn)
Ur first sentence: even if u can deadlift 455, that doesn’t make you correct by default.
Ur second sentence: yes. Multiple people in my gym can bench 225. I have seen it myself and they ain’t 225lbs.
My point: ur not right by default
It’s so sad. Some TAs eat less to cover other expenses and/or rely on food banks. There are TAs living in illegal housing because they can barely afford to live and there are some even living in their cars. Very sad situation. They’re our educators and they deserve so much better than that. The university makes so much money, I’m sure they can afford to give our teachers a higher wage :(
As others have noted, that students are receiving a wage at all *while still in school* is pretty amazing on its own. This is not a given, I took out nearly 60k in loans to do my Masters in the UK, and most in the UK need to win a scholarship to receive PhD funding.
Funding in many parts of the world while doing a Masters or PhD is definitely not a given, and having a wage sufficiently high that it is entirely sufficient to live on *while studying* is far from a given. That a living wage for a Masters or PhD student should be the norm is a downright extreme stance.
Being a TA has a 135 hour/semester limit. Lets say you work all year (400 hours of TA work) and made *only* 20k. That equates to $50/hour. I don't know how valuable you think a TA's work is, but that already sounds more than fair.
If you think research should be paid, try being paid as an undergrad. If you think think research should be paid *for results* (to justify why a graduate researcher should be paid much more than an undergrad) then almost no graduate student would receive anything close to a living wage; and again research alone does not equate to funding in many countries.
If you are a graduate student not receiving a living wage, take out a loan. That is what normal people to do to obtain their education. The delta in net income between an undergrad and graduate student is already too high.
Students are confused. A strike helps students. It becomes easier to get the pass or finish the class with less work than would typically be required, or just have the ability to retake it with no penalty or anything on your transcript.
The marking becomes lenient, and thus not so strict, and will likely bell curve grades too.
Makes no sense for students wining and complaining you’re getting helped while the TAs and part time faculty also get paid what they should.
Sounds like a win win
Lol let’s face it, most of your classes are honestly not needed. When would you ever put to good use a 9.0 history of Egypt class ? Or any social science or humanities class ? Even many IT classes and science classes I’ve taken we only use a small portion of what we learn and even then it’s rehashed in later classes you take. There ofc is the exception where you need important IT or math classes but even then lol theyre very difficult and would be nice to pass the class and move past it. Either way strikes not bad, not to mention if you’re still enjoying the learning part you can self teach your self from the slides and read the entire textbook for the class. Like i said
Strikes not bad
Whatever works for you. As a pure math major you have zero chance of graduating if you don’t actually learn the material. I assume it’s the same for engineering, CS, phys etc
>A strike helps students
In what way? I paid 1000 dollars to study and understand the concept. I’ll make my money worth it. I didn’t pay 1000 dollars to sit around and not study
>Makes no sense for students to complain…
I paid 1000 dollars to expect education. Of course I can complain when I’m not getting it
So you should write to the school and let them know to pay the TAs so we don’t strike. Everyone getting mad at the TAs and Unions. The only people that can do something is the university
Thank you! It's completely unfair to criticize the union for wanting a strike when the reality is York's staff (particularly TAs but also some profs) are not making livable wage. For those who still think it's unfair, search up the salaries of York's president and the raises she gave herself and her execs recently. Compare those salaries to the wages of TAs who can barely afford housing. Of course there would be some disparity between the president of the university and TAs, but the point is that the university is very much capable of giving a better deal/contract to members of the union. Anger and frustration if a strike is to occur should be directed towards the university, NOT the union and NOT your TAs/profs.
Most of the people blaming TA’s and union members for York’s strike clearly don’t know how the working world works. Tell me you live off daddy’s money without telling me.
Most of the people who are angry wouldn’t care if they did get their school paid for by daddy. The people who are the most upset are the people who are the most effected which are the people who pay school out of their own pocket or aren’t from here and want to finish school in a set amount of time. Even if the TAs are in the right you can’t except everyone to drop their lives and wish them good luck. A strike is meant to piss people off that’s the entire point. The students will be angry and that’s the bargaining power.
Most of CUPE 3903 members, especially TAs, live off parental income (“Daddy’s money”). I was part of that union for 6 years and all I saw were rich kids masquerading as revolutionaries. Most I knew—especially in the department of politics—had nothing but contempt for poor people and the working class. Many love to talk about other peoples privilege except their own class privilege. Make no mistake, many TA’s have rich parents paying for their apartments in downtown Toronto. These are the same people who think policies like Basic Income are “neoliberal” and should be opposed - they think that because they don’t need a basic income, they have no stake in this fight. Moreover, those organizing the strike are looking to advance their careers at everyone’s expense.
>so-called-Canada
There it is
York TA's make $35.44/hour which is about 1/3 higher than the national average. The only thing higher wages for you leads to is higher tuition costs for students. For TAs to provide a service that the internet and Youtube provide for free. Go fuck yourselves you greedy cunts.
The university doesn't set tuition rates you tool.
TA is a part time job, and many of them have to work second jobs just to barely make ends meet. A number of them are relying on food banks.
> The only thing higher wages for you leads to is higher tuition costs for students.
Their wages have *fallen behind the rate of inflation*, and they are not only seeking real wage increases but are seeking retroactive compensation to make for lost wages due to Doug Ford's illegal wage suppression via bill 124.
Higher wages also lead to happier and more engaged TAs who aren't constantly stressed about not being able to pay the rent.
> For TAs to provide a service that the internet and Youtube provide for free.
Delusional. A good TA can mean the difference between passing and failing a class. I've had classes where I wouldn't have learned anything without the help of TAs.
> Go fuck yourselves you greedy cunts.
As yes, living paycheck-to-paycheck and relying on food banks. Totally "greed".
Nah. Profs have to justify their wages through teaching and research. TAs parrot prof talking points and provide clarification that can easily be found for free (and better quality) on Youtube.
If you support any group of people globally, you support colonialism. I just support colonialism in the *checks notes*; places everybody seems to want to live in. Even the virtual signalling useful idiots that claim to hate it.
“Don’t be a sheep”
Says the Lingonberry fighting to lick the boot of the system. It’s a fallacy to think that being given a raise to a livable wage would hurt the worker.
Canada has progressive tax brackets first off, so this really isn’t an issue in this or any related case.
Second, based on their current wages they still wouldn’t be close to hitting that next tax bracket unless they start earning 10s of thousands dollars extra a year, which is unfortunately unlikely anyways.
It’s absolutely a logical fallacy. It’s a scare tactic used to keep wages low and benefit the employer.
We are talking about the ability of these people to afford food. We are talking about the ability of these people to afford their education. We are talking about my the ability of these people to afford a roof over their heads. It’s their ability to live their lives and participate in their communities.
These are basic human needs.
To argue that any increase - however marginal it may be - to their pay wouldn’t benefit the worker is ignorant and demeaning to the worker.
Riiiiiight. So building unfunded buildings praying for naming rights and giving senior admin staff huge raises while adding to their ranks (of admin who do nothing to do with students, teaching, or research), sent York into a financial hole, and York makes the lowest paid academic workers pay the price for their blunders??? Yeah - fuck that. York is artificially claiming it’s broke, meanwhile giving admin huge raises and increasing international student enrollment.
Why do you think you have the best pay and benefits in the country? Could it be perhaps that the union is doing a good job with its bargaining strategies. You have good pay now because the unions past actions and now they are acting on behalf of current and future employees.
Continue licking the boot, that’s fine. Having worked for another uni, I can tell you York certainly does NOT have the best compensation package. Not by a mile
some of us actually want to work and pay rent. Some of us have families to feed. How about you touch grass and go do something useful instead of leeching off society?
nobody is oppressing me, I'm getting paid in a voluntary transaction for my labour. If i didn't want to work here i would go find somewhere else to work. we aren't opressed we live in Canada and get paid more than 90% of the developing world. Go read a first year economics textboook and get off your high horse you loser.
Framing your pay as a voluntary arrangement between you and York obscures the fact that your pay and benefits are due to past union negotiation on your behalf.
In very concrete ways, you benefit from this union. For example, York graduate students are entitled to 6 years of guaranteed funding as part of the "priority pool". That is 1-2 more years than other universities in Canada, including U of T.
You ever had a weekend before? Unions fought for that. Ever heard of maternity leave? Unions made that happen. Ever heard of no child labour?? Unions did that.
Our TAs are paid very well, yes.
The cost of living here is also very very high. Also, the union is seeking retroactive wage increases to compensate for the effects of Doug Ford's illegal wage suppression bill that was struck down as unconstitutional. That is reasonable imo.
People working long hours just to make ends meet are not "greedy", my friend.
Bro, take your union propaganda and shove it. I spent 7 years at York between undergrad and law school and I had to deal with THREE STRIKES.
And why? The York TAs go on strike more than anyone else despite being the highest paid TAs in Canada
I have no sympathy for people who try to hold my education hostage so they can get more money.
Even if the university gave him everything they asked for they do it again the next round of the labour negotiations. There’s no satisfying these people they will always go on strike every chance they get.
>they will always go on strike every chance they get.
The last one was *6 years ago*.
Their wages are being cut in real terms and still have not recovered from Doug Ford's illegal and unconstitutional wage suppression bill. Many are living paycheck-to-paycheck and even relying on food banks.
As for being the "highest paid TAs in Canada', their work is part time and living costs in Toronto are sky-high and only climbing.
Take your far-right, anti-worker, elitist corporate propaganda and shove it.
Nobody actually wants to strike, rightist. They do it because those at the top insist on cheaping out on everything except for worker pay.
The last strike was 6 years ago because they haven’t had a chance to strike since
Everyone is suffering from inflation. It’s not an excuse to force students throughout another strike
They know what the compensation was and they took the job. Can’t complain about it now
Toronto doesn’t have the highest cost of living in Canada, Vancouver does. Despite being paid less, I don’t see UBC TAs going on strike 2-3 times per decade
I find it hard to believe that they don’t want to go on strike when the York TAs have gone on strike more than any other faculty union in North America. There is something peculiarly bad about CUPE 3903 at York. They do shit that NO ONE ELSE DOES
Dude...you know people used to hold general strikes right? Like...literally shutting everything down? You worried about your classes, these folks couldn't get toilet paper.
Baffled??? We're paying tuition, and times are just as tough for us as the TAs. I get TAs would fuck over students in their beef with the school because that's their leverage, but that doesn't mean students can't be pissed about it. I don't care if it's malicious or not. It affects us all the same. People's sentiments aren't always going to align with what you think is moral.
> TAs and the union clearly do not give a shit about the students and their needs,
Should they be expected to not strike and tolerate chronically low pay for you?
Universities are educational institutions, if you guys want to earn a lot money then I do not think academia is the right path guys. tbh you are not best employees in the market, that is why you are at York, if you think you are that qualified then you can always switch to UofT for a better pay cheques. I am not saying here the management is doing a nice job but you are not either. You earn what you deserve.
“Stop criticizing” yeah lost me there. It’s always important to be critical of what’s in front of you especially when it affects you in material ways. Get over your feelings
Students are PAYING for a service. When that service is not above or at standards that is an issue for the student who are paying for the education. Don’t punish the students.
But the staff can’t afford to continue providing the service, so they’re interrupting the service until the institution meets the basic requirements needed to operate said service.
Be upset with the administration that’s dropping the ball and preventing you from receiving the service you paid for.
I support the union and the strike, but do try to have empathy for the other affected party here: the students. People are going to be miffed about this situation throwing a wrench in their plans and lives, and that's understandable. Still, the university is being incredibly stubborn and unreasonable. The union's demands are quite reasonable.
I mean. Doesn't this hate against the union and TAs come from a place of self-centeredness? People owe a duty to care about each other. Like, it's just not a moral thing to only think about yourself. And...don't you all see that we're all working class? When we support unions we support rights of the working people, this has nothing to do with hating students. You should understand that unions are responsible for a fuck ton of privileges you have today and will enjoy in future. They have a right to strike. It's not personal. It's not because they hate you. It's because they're underpaid. Why would you be angry at the TAs for that??? The university's the one not paying them! Just because y'all don't have the chance to bargain for your rights, doesn't mean you shouldn't support others. If you're pissed about working at your underpaid, shitty ass job, then...form a union.
So it’s considered selfish to complain about the strike when students are paying to live here and go to school here (costing us thousands a month) but it’s not selfish to say F the students we aren’t getting paid enough? Even though many of those who are striking make more than the countries average on a per hour average basis…
You're targeting the wrong entity because you think the strikers are the ones in the wrong, and not the university. You are not entitled to the TA's labour. The university and you formed a contract, *not* you and TAs. Your grievances should be heard by the university and not the striking members. And oh, the whole "make more than the country's average" thing has been debunked many times. Toronto (and Vancouver) are the most expensive cities to live in Canada. If you'd do 10 mins of research you'll find that their hourly wages do not keep up with the COL. And that more often than not they're spending more time on work than they're paid for. It's not just about wages either. The strike is also about better working conditions, job security, etc. They literally went through a collective bargaining process. The university failed to respond to several times despite numerous requests. You think they just got up one day and said fuck all the students and decided to strike? You are NOT entitled to their labour.
It’s not been “debunked”…. Here is a current listing from yorku for a TA, with the hourly at over $35 an hour…. Which is well above a livable wage. So saying “TAs don’t make enough” is false and saying “they are paid under a livable wage” is also false. I don’t feel bad for the TAs, they are being greedy at this point. I ONLY feel bad for all the students who pay to live in Toronto, and pay to go to york and because of the strike are now losing thousands of dollars a month paying to live in a city and attend a uni that doesn’t even have classes. And the whole “spend more time doing work then what they are paid for” is bs. Many professions work more than the hours they are paid, and don’t complain… however if they are going to complain then simply don’t do the extra work outside of working hours… The uni didn’t “fail to bargain”, they did bargain, but it’s hard to do so in good faith when the union is being overly greedy. https://ca.indeed.com/cmp/York-University/salaries/Teaching-Assistant/Ontario#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20a%20Teaching,39%25%20above%20the%20national%20average.
$35 an hour is a living wage at full time hours. But TAs are not given full time hours. Up until last year I was a PhD student and TA at York. Annual compensation, including TA wages, is 24k per year. That is simply not livable in Toronto, and TAs are being forced to take on second and third jobs in addition to TAing, picking up teaching contracts if possible, apply for as much funding as they can secure, be a full-time student, and try to become a successful academic by writing and publishing. York can and should do much more to support their TAs. Just throwing around the $35/hr number is not honest.
so where is the logic in taking on a part time job and are expecting that part time time to pay for all of your living expenses or pay you for full time hours when working partime? a part time job is just that, a part time job. it is not meant to pay for all of your living expenses or pay ypu a significant annual income.
Reposting one of my comments on this topic: Going to respond to this as if you're seriously asking (which I hope you are!): I agree with you for undergraduate (and even Masters) students. But for doctoral students, which are the only students that can TA, even with only part-time teaching hours, being a doctoral student is presented to applicants as a full-time job. When I was applying to my doctoral program, the program advisor literally said to me that I should post-pone my PhD plans if I had any immediate family members that seemed as if they might die in the next 3 years. Doctoral programs expect full-time (and above) devotion. As a PhD-er, your actual TA hours (which you get a wage for) are part-time, but as a doctoral student you are expected to be a team player on the faculty, including: applying for as much funding as possible to bring more money into the Department; researching, writing, and publishing with your supervisor or other faculty to build up an academic resume for yourself; eventually doing practical lab work or field work or archival work (depending on your field); and participating in Departmental committee work (hiring, tenure-review, admissions, curriculum-review, etc.). All of that in addition to being a full-time doctoral student and a part-time TA, meaning you are taking the most difficult and comprehensive coursework and examinations of your life, learning how to be a teacher on the fly, and writing the most comprehensive and in-depth research project of your life (so far!) while having it be peer-reviewed and interrogated by tenured faculty that terrify you. There's a reason that doctoral programs in Europe pay full and livable salaries to their PhD students. Firstly their universities are less 'diploma-mill-y' than ours are, but also, those schools recognize that being a doctoral student is not like being a regular student with a part-time teaching gig. It's the first-step in an academic career, with time commitments that are absolutely back-breaking and far above full-time in terms of actual effort. Some schools in North America (I'm not sure if York does this, it may technically require it but look the other way) require that doctoral students sign a contract saying they won't pick up another job! Because as a doctoral student you are expected to literally dedicate your entire waking life for 4-6 years to your doctoral studies and the dream of becoming an academic. Now this is all absolutely a scam, since universities create far more PhDs than there are professorships. It's this scam factor that caused me to leave my PhD program. But I will not fault those that are still in their PhDs and trying hard to live and achieve their career goals from fighting to make sure that while they are in that scam they are not scraping the poverty line making net $24k/year in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And that's what this strike is about.
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It’s called a cost of living adjustment. Look it up. Most careers have it.
okay but. how many hours do they work? (contractually, mind you, not because they're "lazy" or anything) i could make $500 an hour and it wouldn't be a livable wage if i only got one hour a month.
Then that is your problem for choosing to work a job where you only work one hour a month, and do nothing for the other 240 working hours in a month.
In that case as you mentioned, much like with the TA’s, it’s not the taxpayers job, or the students job to fork over more money to support a bunch of people who CHOOSE to work less hours than the standard work week.
you don't understand, the TAs don't *want* you to pay more money. that's not what's happening. strikes like these happen because the university *has* the budget to pay these people a livable wage, but instead they're throwing all that money into the Markham Vanity Project.
The university expanding has nothing to do with the TA’s lol that’s just false equivalency, but as for the money thing, their financials are all online to see, york barely scrapes by each year between revenues and expenses, and a lot of their assets have been acquired through donations, however those donations go towards certain projects chosen by said donors and cannot be used by the school for anything other than its intended purpose. So realistically york doesn’t have a lot of budget space to work with to meet the new demands, especially when they need that budget to provide more resources to students needs aswell as other faculty other than just the TA’s
Hourly wages for faculty and TAs are based on the classroom contact hours. So if you have a 1-hour tutorial, your TA gets paid for 1 hour. But that "hour" also includes time outside of the contact hours for them to do prep work, communicate with students, and do grading.
Also what working conditions need to be improved? Majority of TAs do most of their work from home, and it’s not like the job is labour intensive or necessarily difficult by any means.
Have you ever talked to a TA about what their job entails? Also, most of the demands are regarding increasing pay to match the cost of living, and upgrading the health insurance package.
Lmao as per the earlier link I had posted in this thread, the average TA makes upwards of $35 an hour (more than doubled minimum wage) and already receives tons of benefits on top of that for a job that isn’t labour intensive or difficult. They are being greedy now.
What is a TA paid per hour? I keep hearing they aren’t paid a living wage but isn’t it just a part time job?
It is a part time job, but under the rules of the university they cannot work more than 10 hours per week on average. So they can't pick up more work.
What are the Union demands? You say they are reasonable, what are they?
I undertand why the strike needs to happen but also international students or people living on campus- will they be allowed to stay longer because of the strike? Or will they have to pay even more money to stay past april? edit: to people downvoting me i’m asking legit questions, i’m sorry if what i’m asking doesn’t align with your perception of reality where the strike only impacts york executives- but other people are getting fucked over too. It’s not selfish to think about students who also are paying to live here.
Take that grievance directly to admin. The more pressure y'all put on them, the less a strike is likely to happen.
they get screwed over, having to go back to their home country without completing their courses
PhD stipend is like what, $17,000 a year and TAships add another $15,000 if you do it every semester and TA many hours? That's $32,000 a year, practically minimum wage and balancing research and TA work ends up costing you 12-hour workdays. It's extremely difficult to survive on that, especially in Toronto.
Ahaha it’s actually like 19k with fees removed.
It's around $29k total funding per year before the \~$5500 tuition. The TA hours to get that are mandatory unless your supervisor buys you out with their own funding.
Way too many PhDs out in the wild. I interviewed six different chemistry PhDs last year and they were honestly dumber than many many undergraduates and masters I already have on staff. The fact that PhDs have become guaranteed if you pay your dues is horseshit. What the fuck happened to contributing to your field of study and making humanity better off for it? The vast majority of doctoral theses published in the past two decades don't even get referenced ONCE(!!!) five years after publication.
Wow now I feel important that my masters thesis was cited three times in that time
PhD thesis citations are not a meaningful metric. It depends a lot by field, but I don't expect anyone to ever cite my thesis (except others in my group for their own thesis), and I have plenty of citations on papers I published during my PhD. The only reason anyone would cite it is if they're talking about some extremely specific aspect of our experimental technique, which is not common.
Yeah a citation from a dissertation is typically not common since folks may convert their dissertation to books or journal articles. A dissertation is a tough thing to cite cause it’s soo dense as opposed to a article or book since editorials have more influence.
But is that York’s problem as employer? Or is it a government funding / education structure problem?
Always blame the people who hold the money. That's the enemy at the end of the day.
> so called Canada 🙄
They really snuck that in there didn’t they
This is what it’s like going to a CUPE 3903 meeting. A bunch of extremists screaming at anybody trying to be realistic. So glad to be out of that union, so I don’t have to listen to any more complaints about things such as: a white man speaking to answer a question he was asked, a CUPE national rep pointing out something that happened, and the university trying to put online voting in place so more union members could vote on final offers and strikes rather than just the ones who can make it to an inconveniently scheduled meeting and stand in line for hours.
I went through the strike in 2008 that was ended with legislation. My frustration at the time was that CUPE 3903 was asking for a new stream making TAs full time employees with guarantees to become full time professors. It was obviously not going to happen- which became particularly apparent when YUFA put a statement out the supported the University's position. I felt like CUPE wasn't bargaining in good faith at the time at the cost of my education. I've only glanced at the news- but the good news is that it looks like this is simply a wage issue. Hopefully the University coughs up the cash and everyone can get back to work!
I was also at york during the 2008 strike and they were asking for way too much back then too. The argument for "living wage" is also dumb. If prices of food and shelter are too high (Which they are for sure) that is not the Universities Job, that's the governments job to enact different policies to address this. The University is just a school, they can't control the cost of housing and food. The TAs are not going to get much more money than what any other TA gets in canada.
“It’s a complex issue so we should make the bottom suffer” If there is no broader political change to bring down the cost of living, then it’s the responsibility of organizations and corporations to ensure their staff are adequately compensated. That’s how the system works. If you dont like it, then work to reform the system.
I hope my post isn't made to look like I don't support the union. I think a lot of people missed that public servants were capped at 1% increases through historic inflation increases. Asking for back pay to make up the difference isn't a militant position at all.
Only like 20-30% of them even participate in the vote which determines if they go on strike or not.
The union doesn’t what it can to make voting difficult so that only the ones who care the most will bother to come out. They choose a small window on a Friday afternoon to make sure the vote is stacked with the most hardcore radicals.
Saying "so called Canada" is cringe
What do they even mean by that? I don’t get it, if it’s in a somehow racist way then it seems out of character considering how “for the people” the post sounds
Judging by OPs current responses, no actual conversation will be had. They came here to say their piece and then just start to throw around the boot licker comment to any opposing view. Very good look, very mature, very much how you enlighten, engage and persuade others. You do more harm to yourself and your cause with aggression towards anyone other than your employer.
I just call it how I see it. Someone’s gotta say it 🤷🏻 What am I gonna do, give a detailed lit review on the manifesto to some business bros on Reddit? 🙄 Not my circus, not my monkeys.
As a former TA, my understanding is this job is not meant to sustain you. It's a part time job for extra money and experience but it's not meant to live off of which is why I think this is a little ridiculous...
If you contribute your labour, you should be able to afford to live and continue providing that labour. It shouldn’t be the case that these roles are reserved for only the extremely wealthy as a resume builder. It’s peoples lives.
That's a terrible argument, you should be paid adequately for the labour you do. If you work 2 hours for $50 an hour, then you get paid $100 and pick up another job.
But TAs don’t just do 2 hours of work, it’s damn well a full time job.
Is it actually full time work tho? It’s 3 days tops if they sit down and work a normal 8 hour shift. How hard can marking work and writing up a slide before the semester begins be. If they are doing the profs work then they should be having a problem with the profs who get paid over 100k who put all their work onto underpaid TAs
I was a TA at York for years. While you’re accurately portraying the attitude of those most involved in 3903, you should realize that you’re actually turning people against TAs with your ridiculous expectations and outright lies. Having a part time job doesn’t mandate your employer to cover all of your living expenses for whatever small amount of labour you do. If you’re a graduate student, TAing isn’t a full time job. There’s no way the university would allow you to take on 8 67.5 hour TAships per semester. Those that do that are in unit 2 and pull in more than $80,000 per year working full time. Those that do not have full time positions choose to take the jobs knowing they are part time contract positions. If they really thought they were so terrible, there wouldn’t be as many people fighting for each one offered.
Just because you only see them for 2 hours in a lab or lecture doesn’t mean that’s their full job obligations my lorddddd
There is 135 hour/semester limit on TAing... [https://www.yorku.ca/unit/faculty-relations/work-performed-by-graduate-students/](https://www.yorku.ca/unit/faculty-relations/work-performed-by-graduate-students/)
Getting a kick out of the business bro corporate simps in here like “take a first year economics class” 🤣 You’re literally taking a degree in exploiting the working class, it’s entirely capitalist propaganda. Take a liberal arts course or two. Broaden your social horizons a bit lads 😮💨
Some of us are literally business graduates making peanuts. These first years know a little more than nothing about these topics.
You can smell Daddy’s money in their comments
The only thing I smell in this post is the stench of dirty communists.
God forbid we work together to ensure everyone in our community has rights and is able to live a full and happy life 🙄
Yes, under Mao and Stalin, all their citizens had rights and lived full and happy lives.
*scapegoats the two convenient examples who’s ability to serve the people were crushed by economic sanctions and military action by the west*
Wrong. Stalin was funded by the West. Two thirds of Soviet industry was funded by the United States. Try again. [https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1944v04/d883](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1944v04/d883)
*links American government propaganda*
A telegram sent from the Soviet Ambassador to the United States is American government propaganda? Clearly you lack the capacity to think for yourself.
Not my circus not my monkeys man I’m not gonna argue with you on this
> you’re learning propaganda in economics > take a liberal arts course instead LMFAO I’m almost convinced you’re a far right troll at this point
I’m literally as far from that as you can get. Western economics is no more than a Ponzi Scheme designed to enrich the wealth of the ruling class. Economics as a field of study simply exists to enable the agenda of the ruling class, perpetuate the ideology, and solidify its position in society. Take the opportunity to learn from marginalized groups in society and it becomes apparent how damaging this structure is to our society as a whole. Take a course in indigenous or women’s studies, even environmental studies. You know what I’m saying lol
Like others have suggested, if you’re so upset about this you should take action and leave instead of continuing to benefit from ongoing settler-colonial-capitalist violence. May I suggest you move to one of the countries elsewhere in the world thriving off a socialist or communist system that has no history of colonization?
Cop out take sir. “If you don’t like it then move” is about the least socially aware and least politically nuanced argument you could possibly make.
Not really. People are tired of hearing this nonsense. All you’re doing with this is hurting the cause you wish to support. Nonsense rhetoric like this is seriously damaging the Canadian left and people like you are certainly at fault for the major shift to the right in this country. When we regress to right wing identity politics in the next election I hope you remember that you and your nonsense rhetoric played a part in it.
Economic and social instability is capitalized on by right wing politicians who provide oversimplified answers and a common scapegoat enemy. And in uncertain times scared people don’t tend to like complex answers to complex issues, because they aren’t “easy” and are often uncomfortable. It’s literally just groupthink/riot mentality. That’s not a fault of leftists 😅 They’re winning because they’re lying and taking cheap shots on marginalized people.
Naw, when your average politically uninvolved person hears nonsense rhetoric like “so called Canada” they tend to immediately stop listening. Conservatives don’t need to capitalize on this, like the vast majority of Canadians think you are insane. Source: I go outside. You clearly need to try it sometime.
Reading this guy's post history is like reading the walls of the nut house, I would laugh if this wasn't something a real person actually though. Least insane lefty moment.
>You’re literally taking a degree in exploiting the working class, Business, Engineering, Law, they are usually biased towards those things, cause, * They are highly privileged in Financially and Socio Economics * They are only focused on their passions, goals, they don't care about those, as long as it don't affect them * Usually/Rarely take any Liberal Arts courses lol >Take a liberal arts course or two. Broaden your social horizons a bit lads You have pointed this right.This helped me understanding those things, after I moved to another Degree from CS. **Yet another problem is, lots of students especially business, law, always disagree adn and not wanting to understand things that are taught in the class lol**. They even argues with profs, and accuses them to be propagandist lmao I saw those happening in those classes lol
Yeah I’ve seen it too, but idk in my opinion it’s better for them to at least be exposed to the ideas rather than hole up in their echo chamber. I don’t believe that you can be truly personally successful unless you are conscious of the intersectional community around you, and make an effort to ensure they are equally as well off as you are. Idealist I know, but it’s something to work towards.
You realize that you too exist within an echo chamber of your own means right? And tbh it ain’t anyones job to care about anyone else… cause that’s when you run into issues of body autonomy and suppression from one group towards another. Without realizing, you are perpetuating the very thing you want to destroy.
You can care about others, and care about their bodily autonomy too… id wager that respecting their bodily autonomy is essential to truly caring for someone 🤷🏻 what’s with all the black and white, my lordddd
What you said is self contradicting. If everyone started caring about everyone then you’d have a bunch of people running around trying to control others because they think they knows what is best for others based on their own opinions and experiences. Like what you have with republicans in the states trying to ban abortion as an example. If people truly didn’t care about everyone else then problems like racism, body autonomy, and many more would cease to exist as everyone would be indifferent towards each other instead of overbearing, demanding, and controlling.
But there’s a big difference between caring for for your neighbour and controlling them
I prefer indifference. Id prefer that random people didn’t start caring for random people because what I do isn’t anyone else’s business, and what anyone else does isn’t my business, until it starts to impact me and my life. If everyone started living that way and showed mutual respect, a lot of issues in the world would disappear.
That’s literally caring for other people my guy….
Every student at York is capable of looking at the very recent strike history of their post-secondary educational choice. Is 2018 too long ago for students now to care about? 142 days on the picket line. [https://macleans.ca/education/york-university-is-this-canadas-most-strike-prone-school/](https://macleans.ca/education/york-university-is-this-canadas-most-strike-prone-school/)
don’t be so disrespectful to our country by calling it “so-called-Canada”. Our country is called CANADA. This behaviour is absolutely disgusting because you are basically spitting on the graves of everyone who built this country, and died defending it so show a little bit more respect. Shame on you.
And calling it Canada is pretty disrespectful to the millions of indigenous people that were murdered when the country was “built”
Complain about Catholic Churches then, not Canadians. Our families all came here from different backgrounds for the same reason, so show a little bit more respect for the country you are currently living in. Canadians and indigenous didn’t lay down their lives in war protecting this country for you just so you can sit here and be disrespectful towards it.
It’s not just Catholic Churches though, that was just one tool used by the state. It’s RCMP it’s Family Services, it’s the Indian Act etc etc etc. There’s a difference between respecting the martyr and respecting the state.
Respect our country or gtfo. It’s quite simple. Traitor.
Have some empathy my guy. Lots of unpacking to do here
There’s no unpacking here. It’s just clear that you have a very heavily left leaning bias and can’t fathom the idea that everyone else’s business isn’t your own and that it’s not everyone else’s job to be forced to provide money/resources to help others who wouldn’t do the same for them.
Enjoy continuing to receive your pubic healthcare I guess lmao
Public healthcare in Canada is way to expensive for the taxpayer compared to its quality. I’d gladly take private healthcare as an option as I know I would get insurance and benefits through my company like our coworkers in the states.
But is private insurance not just the same as public health care? You’re paying into a pool of money that anyone in the pool can use when they god-forbid need it? Oh that’s right, you only want to do nice things for other wealthy people… I see 🙄
Good luck in real life dude
Agreed 100%. Way too many students taking it out on the union staff and TA’s who the university would fail to function without. They don’t want to resort to this, but I can’t blame them and neither should anyone. They’re overworked and making barely over minimum wage to live in a city where you have to make 3-4 times that to survive. I sympathize with the inconvenience and financial hardship that gets passed onto my fellow students. And the concerns and stress that is being felt by us is valid. But you should be angry at York and their crummy overpaid higher ups as well the provincial government for this. Bill 124 was a disgusting use of the notwithstanding clause and it fucked over so many public service workers. The demands of the union are more than reasonable. If you really blame the unions for this I ask you to put yourself in their shoes. Seriously. Some of yall have never worked a debilitating minimum wage job or educated yourself on these issues and it shows.
Preach ✨
I'll criticize whoever I want. I refuse to stop.
I wish York taught critical thinking
I don't understand what that has to do with me. I don't require critical thinking as I am physically stronger than most people, therefore correct by default.
🤣
“I am physically strong” “Lemme bully this kid, I’ll still be correct by default” 🤡🤡 Just bc ur “self claimed” strong, doesn’t mean ur correct
I have a PL total that exceeds 1100lbs. I am stronger than 99.9% of the world's population. Bullying is bad. Source: I am stronger than you and therefore correct by default.
>I am stronger than 99.9% of the worlds population Source: trust me bro Me: ok bro keep dreaming
[Do you think more than .1% of people alive today can deadlift 455lbs for a single? ](https://youtu.be/kb6QFM2IN50?si=aUwD888zVvKWIHCf) [Or bench thier own bodyweight for more than 10 reps?](https://youtu.be/F6fQhtp632c?si=gB1UZf7zpFhIyEqn)
Ur first sentence: even if u can deadlift 455, that doesn’t make you correct by default. Ur second sentence: yes. Multiple people in my gym can bench 225. I have seen it myself and they ain’t 225lbs. My point: ur not right by default
It’s so sad. Some TAs eat less to cover other expenses and/or rely on food banks. There are TAs living in illegal housing because they can barely afford to live and there are some even living in their cars. Very sad situation. They’re our educators and they deserve so much better than that. The university makes so much money, I’m sure they can afford to give our teachers a higher wage :(
As others have noted, that students are receiving a wage at all *while still in school* is pretty amazing on its own. This is not a given, I took out nearly 60k in loans to do my Masters in the UK, and most in the UK need to win a scholarship to receive PhD funding. Funding in many parts of the world while doing a Masters or PhD is definitely not a given, and having a wage sufficiently high that it is entirely sufficient to live on *while studying* is far from a given. That a living wage for a Masters or PhD student should be the norm is a downright extreme stance. Being a TA has a 135 hour/semester limit. Lets say you work all year (400 hours of TA work) and made *only* 20k. That equates to $50/hour. I don't know how valuable you think a TA's work is, but that already sounds more than fair. If you think research should be paid, try being paid as an undergrad. If you think think research should be paid *for results* (to justify why a graduate researcher should be paid much more than an undergrad) then almost no graduate student would receive anything close to a living wage; and again research alone does not equate to funding in many countries. If you are a graduate student not receiving a living wage, take out a loan. That is what normal people to do to obtain their education. The delta in net income between an undergrad and graduate student is already too high.
100%. These people are students. Most people take out loans and go into serious debt to finish grad school.
Students are confused. A strike helps students. It becomes easier to get the pass or finish the class with less work than would typically be required, or just have the ability to retake it with no penalty or anything on your transcript. The marking becomes lenient, and thus not so strict, and will likely bell curve grades too. Makes no sense for students wining and complaining you’re getting helped while the TAs and part time faculty also get paid what they should. Sounds like a win win
Unless you actually care about the content and substance of your education and require it to proceed to further classes. L mentality
Lol let’s face it, most of your classes are honestly not needed. When would you ever put to good use a 9.0 history of Egypt class ? Or any social science or humanities class ? Even many IT classes and science classes I’ve taken we only use a small portion of what we learn and even then it’s rehashed in later classes you take. There ofc is the exception where you need important IT or math classes but even then lol theyre very difficult and would be nice to pass the class and move past it. Either way strikes not bad, not to mention if you’re still enjoying the learning part you can self teach your self from the slides and read the entire textbook for the class. Like i said Strikes not bad
Whatever works for you. As a pure math major you have zero chance of graduating if you don’t actually learn the material. I assume it’s the same for engineering, CS, phys etc
>A strike helps students In what way? I paid 1000 dollars to study and understand the concept. I’ll make my money worth it. I didn’t pay 1000 dollars to sit around and not study >Makes no sense for students to complain… I paid 1000 dollars to expect education. Of course I can complain when I’m not getting it
So you should write to the school and let them know to pay the TAs so we don’t strike. Everyone getting mad at the TAs and Unions. The only people that can do something is the university
Eat shit
Thank you! It's completely unfair to criticize the union for wanting a strike when the reality is York's staff (particularly TAs but also some profs) are not making livable wage. For those who still think it's unfair, search up the salaries of York's president and the raises she gave herself and her execs recently. Compare those salaries to the wages of TAs who can barely afford housing. Of course there would be some disparity between the president of the university and TAs, but the point is that the university is very much capable of giving a better deal/contract to members of the union. Anger and frustration if a strike is to occur should be directed towards the university, NOT the union and NOT your TAs/profs.
Most of the people blaming TA’s and union members for York’s strike clearly don’t know how the working world works. Tell me you live off daddy’s money without telling me.
Most of the people who are angry wouldn’t care if they did get their school paid for by daddy. The people who are the most upset are the people who are the most effected which are the people who pay school out of their own pocket or aren’t from here and want to finish school in a set amount of time. Even if the TAs are in the right you can’t except everyone to drop their lives and wish them good luck. A strike is meant to piss people off that’s the entire point. The students will be angry and that’s the bargaining power.
Most of CUPE 3903 members, especially TAs, live off parental income (“Daddy’s money”). I was part of that union for 6 years and all I saw were rich kids masquerading as revolutionaries. Most I knew—especially in the department of politics—had nothing but contempt for poor people and the working class. Many love to talk about other peoples privilege except their own class privilege. Make no mistake, many TA’s have rich parents paying for their apartments in downtown Toronto. These are the same people who think policies like Basic Income are “neoliberal” and should be opposed - they think that because they don’t need a basic income, they have no stake in this fight. Moreover, those organizing the strike are looking to advance their careers at everyone’s expense.
If we did we wouldn't be striking. What the hell are you people learning at this here university? We def need more critical thinking.
Literally 💀
Yeah, we can criticize whoever we want.
>so-called-Canada There it is York TA's make $35.44/hour which is about 1/3 higher than the national average. The only thing higher wages for you leads to is higher tuition costs for students. For TAs to provide a service that the internet and Youtube provide for free. Go fuck yourselves you greedy cunts.
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The university doesn't set tuition rates you tool. TA is a part time job, and many of them have to work second jobs just to barely make ends meet. A number of them are relying on food banks. > The only thing higher wages for you leads to is higher tuition costs for students. Their wages have *fallen behind the rate of inflation*, and they are not only seeking real wage increases but are seeking retroactive compensation to make for lost wages due to Doug Ford's illegal wage suppression via bill 124. Higher wages also lead to happier and more engaged TAs who aren't constantly stressed about not being able to pay the rent. > For TAs to provide a service that the internet and Youtube provide for free. Delusional. A good TA can mean the difference between passing and failing a class. I've had classes where I wouldn't have learned anything without the help of TAs. > Go fuck yourselves you greedy cunts. As yes, living paycheck-to-paycheck and relying on food banks. Totally "greed".
Who do you think grades most student work? Last time I checked, it wasn't YouTube.
TAs literally do more work than profs
Nah. Profs have to justify their wages through teaching and research. TAs parrot prof talking points and provide clarification that can easily be found for free (and better quality) on Youtube.
TAs are awesome, and more often than not, TAs are the ones actually helping me learn.
You ever seen a prof mark 400 essays
No. But I have seen the multi choice exams get fed into the thing that actually does the marking. Not exactly brain surgery.
Not every class is a first year Gen Ed 🙄
When I used to TA I would spend triple the time outside my paid hours on the job. Minimum wage pays more. Sessional isn't much better.
Doesn't change the fact that the only thing this will do is increase the costs for students.
The bloat in Universities is on the administrative side, not the front line workers.
Fucking colonial-sympathizers
Back at ya kiddo.
Nice comeback 🙄
If you support any group of people globally, you support colonialism. I just support colonialism in the *checks notes*; places everybody seems to want to live in. Even the virtual signalling useful idiots that claim to hate it.
Fucking communist. Disgusting.
Commie till the day I die 🥰😘💋💋💋💋
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“Don’t be a sheep” Says the Lingonberry fighting to lick the boot of the system. It’s a fallacy to think that being given a raise to a livable wage would hurt the worker.
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Canada has progressive tax brackets first off, so this really isn’t an issue in this or any related case. Second, based on their current wages they still wouldn’t be close to hitting that next tax bracket unless they start earning 10s of thousands dollars extra a year, which is unfortunately unlikely anyways. It’s absolutely a logical fallacy. It’s a scare tactic used to keep wages low and benefit the employer. We are talking about the ability of these people to afford food. We are talking about the ability of these people to afford their education. We are talking about my the ability of these people to afford a roof over their heads. It’s their ability to live their lives and participate in their communities. These are basic human needs. To argue that any increase - however marginal it may be - to their pay wouldn’t benefit the worker is ignorant and demeaning to the worker.
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Literally a dollar more an hour would make a tangible improvement in their lives, but they deserve to fight to improve their quality of life.
You have obviously not been keeping up to date with York's current financial situation...
Riiiiiight. So building unfunded buildings praying for naming rights and giving senior admin staff huge raises while adding to their ranks (of admin who do nothing to do with students, teaching, or research), sent York into a financial hole, and York makes the lowest paid academic workers pay the price for their blunders??? Yeah - fuck that. York is artificially claiming it’s broke, meanwhile giving admin huge raises and increasing international student enrollment.
They’re doing just fine, not the students or the labourers fault that administration is over prioritizing “capital investment”
lol we have the best pay and best benefits of any TA's in the country. the union is just being greedy as usual
Why do you think you have the best pay and benefits in the country? Could it be perhaps that the union is doing a good job with its bargaining strategies. You have good pay now because the unions past actions and now they are acting on behalf of current and future employees.
Go off against workers rights, really good look for you. Very Lassonde of you. Embarrassing 🫣
Already get paid too much
Nobody who gets "paid too much" needs to rely on a foodbank. Ur delusional.
In what world 🥶
lol i'm one of the TA's. way to tell me how to exercise my labour rights.
Continue licking the boot, that’s fine. Having worked for another uni, I can tell you York certainly does NOT have the best compensation package. Not by a mile
some of us actually want to work and pay rent. Some of us have families to feed. How about you touch grass and go do something useful instead of leeching off society?
If you have a family to feed, then you should be fighting for fair pay for your labour, not fighting to lick the boot of your oppressor.
nobody is oppressing me, I'm getting paid in a voluntary transaction for my labour. If i didn't want to work here i would go find somewhere else to work. we aren't opressed we live in Canada and get paid more than 90% of the developing world. Go read a first year economics textboook and get off your high horse you loser.
Framing your pay as a voluntary arrangement between you and York obscures the fact that your pay and benefits are due to past union negotiation on your behalf. In very concrete ways, you benefit from this union. For example, York graduate students are entitled to 6 years of guaranteed funding as part of the "priority pool". That is 1-2 more years than other universities in Canada, including U of T.
Hold a fork you can go to York I guess 🙄 Read up on labour rights. Enjoy affording a house on your wage. Selfish perspective.
way to show off your privilege by telling other people how to live.
Says the one literally fighting against labour rights
You ever had a weekend before? Unions fought for that. Ever heard of maternity leave? Unions made that happen. Ever heard of no child labour?? Unions did that.
Nah, all those are human rights, that people already had, unions did not fight for this. /S
Our TAs are paid very well, yes. The cost of living here is also very very high. Also, the union is seeking retroactive wage increases to compensate for the effects of Doug Ford's illegal wage suppression bill that was struck down as unconstitutional. That is reasonable imo. People working long hours just to make ends meet are not "greedy", my friend.
i'm a TA, I know all about working long hours. This union does not represent me or my positions and if I want to be a graduate student I have to join.
Unions are democratic formations. The university's offer was overwhelmingly rejected by your union brothers and sisters.
Bro, take your union propaganda and shove it. I spent 7 years at York between undergrad and law school and I had to deal with THREE STRIKES. And why? The York TAs go on strike more than anyone else despite being the highest paid TAs in Canada I have no sympathy for people who try to hold my education hostage so they can get more money.
That’s actually they uni holding it hostage. Think you’d know that after law school and everything
Even if the university gave him everything they asked for they do it again the next round of the labour negotiations. There’s no satisfying these people they will always go on strike every chance they get.
>they will always go on strike every chance they get. The last one was *6 years ago*. Their wages are being cut in real terms and still have not recovered from Doug Ford's illegal and unconstitutional wage suppression bill. Many are living paycheck-to-paycheck and even relying on food banks. As for being the "highest paid TAs in Canada', their work is part time and living costs in Toronto are sky-high and only climbing. Take your far-right, anti-worker, elitist corporate propaganda and shove it. Nobody actually wants to strike, rightist. They do it because those at the top insist on cheaping out on everything except for worker pay.
The last strike was 6 years ago because they haven’t had a chance to strike since Everyone is suffering from inflation. It’s not an excuse to force students throughout another strike They know what the compensation was and they took the job. Can’t complain about it now Toronto doesn’t have the highest cost of living in Canada, Vancouver does. Despite being paid less, I don’t see UBC TAs going on strike 2-3 times per decade I find it hard to believe that they don’t want to go on strike when the York TAs have gone on strike more than any other faculty union in North America. There is something peculiarly bad about CUPE 3903 at York. They do shit that NO ONE ELSE DOES
>They know what the compensation was and they took the job. Can’t complain about it now This rhetoric hasn't changed since the Gilded Age.
Yeah, ignore the rest of what I said because you have no compelling response
Unions are the reason that, if you ever have children, they will not be working in coal mines.
CUPE 3903 at York bears no resemblance to the unions of old, who would have never held children’s education hostage to advance their interest
U should see the types of things unions have held hostage historically lol....learn ur history
Dude...you know people used to hold general strikes right? Like...literally shutting everything down? You worried about your classes, these folks couldn't get toilet paper.
Baffled??? We're paying tuition, and times are just as tough for us as the TAs. I get TAs would fuck over students in their beef with the school because that's their leverage, but that doesn't mean students can't be pissed about it. I don't care if it's malicious or not. It affects us all the same. People's sentiments aren't always going to align with what you think is moral.
Union is always greedy.
I see you enjoy the taste of licking boots 🙄
STFU, TAs and the union clearly do not give a shit about the students and their needs, why should we be empathetic to theirs?
> TAs and the union clearly do not give a shit about the students and their needs, Should they be expected to not strike and tolerate chronically low pay for you?
If they do not give a shit about us, do not expect students to give a shit about their needs.
Why is it “so-called-Canada”?
OP explained in another posting, because Canada is a colonizer country etc. etc.
Universities are educational institutions, if you guys want to earn a lot money then I do not think academia is the right path guys. tbh you are not best employees in the market, that is why you are at York, if you think you are that qualified then you can always switch to UofT for a better pay cheques. I am not saying here the management is doing a nice job but you are not either. You earn what you deserve.
“Stop criticizing” yeah lost me there. It’s always important to be critical of what’s in front of you especially when it affects you in material ways. Get over your feelings
Both sides suck; They're all pigs at the same trough and now there isn't enough to go around.
Students are PAYING for a service. When that service is not above or at standards that is an issue for the student who are paying for the education. Don’t punish the students.
But the staff can’t afford to continue providing the service, so they’re interrupting the service until the institution meets the basic requirements needed to operate said service. Be upset with the administration that’s dropping the ball and preventing you from receiving the service you paid for.